It seems to me like the series was planned to end with Saga, So I doubt they would have though far enough ahead to put that in refering to Abadd.
I don’t think we can know if the original TA would ever consider a sequel. Sure Saga completes, well, a saga, but you can always continue one in many different ways should you wish to. In any case, the developers of Orta could have thought to tie it up in this way.
The only dialogue I can find that mentions drones having emotions are these:
[quote]{Zadoc} In order to control the Towers,
{Zadoc} she was given superior intellect.
{Zadoc} As a side effect,
{Zadoc} she gained human emotions.[/quote]
[quote]{Edge} Before, you had no emotions. You…
{Edge} even seemed lifeless at times.
{Azel} That’s normal for drones.
{Azel} But I’m a very special type of drone.
{Edge} Special?
{Azel} Yes.
{Azel} Custom made to merge with
{Azel} the Tower. That’s why
{Azel} I can feel the Tower’s thoughts.[/quote]
So it would make sense that the device was indeed meant to control their emotions like Al3xand3r said, which were a side effect of their ability to communicate with the Towers. Makes you wonder what exactly the Towers are. This means that Abadd was also meant to merge with the Towers and judging from the logs these highly advanced drones were probably in mass production, to the point where they were forced to implement a broken mechanism to meet the demand. Assuming that this happened near the end of the Ancient Age they may have needed all these drones to control the Towers during their absence. So we know that:
a) the drones were malfunctioning
b) we’re also told that the Towers weren’t actually doing their job:
[quote="‘Compiler’ Zadoc"]But over the years, the Towers, have worn down. They are not
functioning efficiently. The regeneration process that began in the Ancient Age has still not been completed.[/quote]
a + b) the drones malfunctioned and stopped controlling the Towers. PD Orta also mentions that there are rumours of entire villages of drones living in isolated regions. Abadd was awakened prematurely because the world had not yet been transformed into the “paradise” the Ancients intended. Despite this he tries to fulfill his objective, only to realize that the Ancients were already dead.
Sorry to go off topic, But I don’t remember hearing this bit in Orta, when is it said and what exactly is said?
Read the encyclopedia.
I do not believe it necessarily follows that the Towers require drones to function properly, though it is an interesting possibility. It seems to me that the story builds Azel up as something fairly unique, she’s either an experiment or she was always intended as a check against the power of the Towers, one way or another. Abadd is not the same class of drone as Azel, of that I am certain.
Abadd is very intelligent, but when left without a clear way to carry out his programming his reaction is very limited and chaotic, while he is advanced in the respect that he is capable of reasoning out a new objective, his emotional reaction is not complex and reflective as was Azel’s.
I believe that Sestren is the one and only necessary governor of the Towers, for the most part any drones still existing are probably going about their ‘lives’ because their masters, and therefore their purpose abandoned them, not because they abandoned their purpose.
Abadd’s difference is the reason we’re thinking the device mentioned in PDS was installed on him while Azel was spared as she got stolen. The limitations you mention could be the defect the device introduced. That’s what we’ve been trying to tie together.
I almost forgot about the Drone record which wasn’t used in the game but could be found on one of the files on the CD:
[quote]Function of Drone
1/1
Synchronize: control Autonomous
Units. To synchronize with complex
structures, a higher thought level
is needed. But a unit at this
level may create its own identity.
Thus production of this type of
unit is strictly prohibited.
Relation with Outbreak of Self
1/2
The Drones with a developed self
had the following problems:
- Difficulties in Synchronizing
- Confusion in Thought Patterns
- Subservience
[/quote]
And going back to the other quote:
[quote]We’ll soon have permission to implant that mechanism. With it, we
should easily clear the targeted value.[/quote]
So apparently they weren’t allowed to create drones like Azel, which is why they asked permission to use a mechanism that could prevent them from creating their own identity. Perhaps the “targeted value” refers to a synchronization rate with the Towers.
Al3xand3r already explained our reasoning, the fact that his reaction is limited and chaotic would make perfect sense if there was a mechanism in place that prevented him from developing his own identity. It’s probably not a coincidence that Abadd malfunctioned when trying to answer Orta’s question “why do you kill?”. Basically it would question his own motives which he simply didn’t have. He only existed to complete his mission given to him by the Ancients. Unlike Abadd, Azel eventually did question her own motives and was making her own decisions in the end.
Still, Azel destroyed the Tower of Uru and Sestren couldn’t do a thing about it. It does seem like Sestren didn’t have full control over the Towers.
[quote=“D-Unit”]
Still, Azel destroyed the Tower of Uru and Sestren couldn’t do a thing about it. It does seem like Sestren didn’t have full control over the Towers.[/quote]
I personally do not think Sestren was originally designed to control the Towers - I believe in the last days before the Ancients finally put their plan into action, they decided to use Sestren as both an observer AND the controller of all the crucial, ancient technology. This was probably done because:
a) they didn’t believe the drones would be able to withstand the test of time to complete the mission.
b) some drones, during the course of the mission, would malfuntion; therefore, they would be a threat to it.
It is interesting to note that handing the reigns over to Sestren may be the reason why the Towers began to slowly malfuntion over time - the reason for this may be due to the fact that the important, ancient technology always requires interfacing in order for the full potential of that system to be realized - this is also why the Dragon always requires a rider to interface with it. I believe that Sestren only had limited access to the Tower network facilities - enough to keep them running on their minimum settings. But, obviously, the minimum settings were not enough and, over time, the technology began to fail, not because of just wear and tear, but also because it was never fully utilized.
So you’re basically saying they replaced something that could end up with possible errors with something that could also end up with errors, and quite a bit easier than the first option. In any case, all that sounds like pure speculation, we don’t have anything to back up the thinking that Sestren was a last minute solution and with the vast differences we see between devices, drones and other Ancient technology the fact the dragon needs a rider appears irrelevant to what the towers or Sestren may or may not need to properly function.
There’s varied reasoning taking place here, and D-Unit and Al3xand3r, you both seem to be misunderstanding my reasoning, or at least my motivation. My response was prompted (in part) by the notion that Abadd was also made to control the Towers, which I simply reject, and it does not fit very well with the other idea that he had this device implanted which presumably corrects the “Outbreak of Self” problem. From what we know it’s likely Abadd could not control the Towers at all, yet Azel had no problem even after her outbreak of self. If it was only a matter of “Difficulties in Synchronizing” then the device didn’t seem to serve that purpose for Abadd.
This device may have been a limiter, or it may have been an augmentation, I don’t think we have any way of knowing for sure? What significance is the order of the Uru records really? If Azel was stolen, are both F07 and F16 different drones? Maybe they weren’t even given another chance to make a drone like Azel, and this device was a “Plan B” intended to supplement the abilities of less advanced drones so they might carry out the role Azel was intended for…
At any rate, Azel was “custom made” to interface with the Towers D-Unit. I never said anything to the effect that Sestren’s control is inviolate, just that I don’t believe the normal operation of the Towers would require drones. And I believe Abadd was probably custom made for his role as well, although for the sake of argument it seems unlikely he’s the one single drone that would have been able to perform that role.
And Kadamose, I like that general idea, but once on that trail there’s too many reasons to think that Sestren-the-entity was actually an invader of the Tower network, not a last minute kludge.
I believe it was a miscalculation on the Ancients’ part - I don’t think they intended the restoration of the planet to take 10,000 years to complete. Even Abadd was surprised when he awoke that the world was not restored the way it was intended - it was actually quite a shock.
The Ancients simply did not take the wear and tear of their technology into account.
Ah, sorry about the misunderstanding Heretic, I wasn’t advocating the notion that Abadd was created to control the Towers myself, I was simply discussing drones and the device(s) mentioned in PDS and how they could tie in with Azel’s ability to have human feelings and Abadd’s malfunctioning when such feelings - or thoughts - should surface. It’s just a thought, it doesn’t actually affect the storyline so much, just attempts to make sense of a few abstract hints thrown here and there in the games.
Kadamose, obviously things didn’t turn out the way they wanted which means they did miscalculate matters, I wasn’t saying anything opposing that in the response you quoted. Details are sketchy though and Abadd may just be shocked because he was only supposed to be activated after the terraforming was complete but apparently it was not.
That of course was the case because the Towers weren’t fully functional and actually ended up delaying the planet’s own healing (and that’s why that took off after the end of PDS) instead of helping it but for all we know, even if they were fully functional the process may still have taken even more time to be completed, Abadd was not awakened on his own after all.
The inability to ressurect the Ancients could be this way for any number of reasons, including the inefficiency of the Towers which may have been sustaining them as well as the terraforming. Heck, maybe destroying Sestren and in turn deactivating all the Towers was what killed them.
I do think there is a more complex story for how the whole Tower plan came together than has ever been directly hinted at. Although I have never felt serious about the exact idea of Sestren as a usurper of the Towers… it appeals to me mainly because I am convinced that there was more than one single agenda at play, indeed more than two for that matter.
I have to admit that I may be expecting too much even from Panzer Dragoon, but everything in the games fundamentally works as a real history, to me at least. So everything that’s less than wholly explainable becomes a different sort of explanation, and to me the only possible explanation for the way things have transpired is not that the Towers broke down before they should have, but that the entire system was never in perfect operational status even from the beginning. And I believe that’s because different factions had different ideas about why the process had to begin, how it should be implemented, and most importantly… how and when it would end.
So to be clear, although it is established that there were rebels against the Towers, I think it is a mistake to regard them as a mere nation or army that was defeated outright. The rebellions became a war for control of the Towers. My personal conviction is that Gash was ultimately a fool of sorts, the pieces of history he has found may be misleading, and his rebels, the faction that opposed the Towers completely, could have even been responsible for the severity of the subjugation of the ‘wild’ humans in the end.
Well those rebels were considered inferior judging by some messages left by the scientists, whatever those were, and they did have to resort to stealing and hijacking of systems therefor they certainly didn’t hold the same power as the faction who had that plan. If you are thinking of something along the lines of a political struggle then I don’t think the Towers would have even been built on first place if that was the case. Their attitude toward each other would also be different. I guess there could be other factions we haven’t heard of that wanted the Towers built for a different version of the plan but the rebels we know of were certainly not holding too much power back then if they had to resort to such tactics. Also, one of those factions you think may have existed must have clearly won before the end else their elaborate plan would have gone even worse.
Myself, I consider the Ancients that built the Towers very similar to the current Empire, except much more powerful. There are several other factions existent, such as the Seekers and Mobo’s tribe, but if it wasn’t for the dragon and his rider they would all end up quite insignificant and the Empire would have achieved relative world domination - though they’ve more or less done that a few times in the past anyway, especially during the dragon’s absence. There may be people who oppose them but they join them anyway since they have no choice, and the few who don’t join them don’t hold any kind of power and would also resort to tactics similar to the tactics the rebels used against the Ancients.
The way I see it, the Ancient rebels must have been reasonably powerful. The creators of the Towers feared that they would rise up to destroy the Towers and created the monsters and dragons to defend them. If the rebels weren’t such a threat, then their wouldn’t have been the need to create such powerful dragons.
There may be no real answer that all the developers at Team Andromeda agreed on, but so long as a history can exist out of the details we’ve been given, a history did happen within the constructs of the fictional Panzer Dragoon world. I think for discussions like these we need to break out of the “what the developers intended” way of thinking, and actually put ourselves into the shoes of multiple people in the Panzer Dragoon world. Like the real world, there are so many possible explanations as to why things are the way they are, simply going by what we a told in the games is only ever going to reveal a tiny fraction of the “real” story. At least, that’s my way of looking out it - I don’t know if that was your point exactly.
Well, the Empire also holds all that military power they hold it and it makes all the other factions appear insignificant, but if they didn’t hold that then how else would they manage to basically control the known world aside from the minority that spend their lives hiding? And they still want more and are trying to earn the knowledge and power of the Ancients.
So, yeah, the Ancients I suppose were similar. I mean, if you have the capability for so elaborate defence systems, won’t you use it, even if it seems over the top for your currently known enemies? It’s not like they had to keep it on a budget with that situation. Besides, the rebels also stole equipment (such as Azel) and therefor could use their own weapons against them so more protection would be good for that case. It came in handy too, with the dragon and all, even if they failed in the end 
Again, I cannot help reflecting on this history as though it were real. And in real conflicts any and every tactic that can be used will be. The allies abducted Nazi scientists during WWII, not because they didn’t have world class scientists of their own, they just didn’t have those particular scientists. Such evidence as we have does suggest that Azel was an unusual project, and not just a drone.
We also have a couple of references that suggest the Towers may have been fixtures of the Ancient Age itself, and not only it’s end. If that were the case then it begs the question of just how long they had been around and whether their function had been exactly the same. If… “Even in the Ancient Age, there were people against the presence of the Towers”, then it implies the opposition was something entrenched and ongoing. And if they made Dragons to guard the Towers against the fear of an uprising, that opposition doesn’t sound so weak actually. Though that reads a little different in Kimimi’s diary translation.
Here is an outline for a possible scenario… the Tower network was a large scale project being built by the dominant political alliance of the time, and it’s purpose was indeed to rejuvenate the world, but at the same time it’s implementation was intended to solidify the power and control of it’s creators. As in the real world there would be many hollow (and not so hollow) objections and threats from other nations or what have you…
But what if, in the middle of all the large scale political conflict, a zealous faction of scientists and other middle class activists - and this could be a conspiracy that crossed all other political boundaries - decided to throw a big monkey wrench into the very heart of the machine. In the middle of vocal opposition from known enemies, the Ancient Masters may have overlooked autonomous treachery from their own subjects, distracted by quelling their direct rivals’ options.
Knowing they could not hope to break their masters’ control directly, the conspiracy decided to rig things so that the power of the Towers would be unleashed against the entire world indiscriminately, or at least in such a way as to send their masters into hiding before they were perfectly prepared.
That’s just one general idea that I like the flavor of… but it’s not quite right as such. The core concept that the way the ancient age “ended” did not happen according to a plan however… is something I just feel so sure of. But I can’t explain why really. 
Well, we do know that the Towers were used as weapons at one point, and I’m pretty sure they are the true cause of the end of the Ancient Age. This would explain why the Towers were failing: they were never intended as rejuvenators to begin with - they were weapons of mass destruction!
It was only AFTER the world had been nearly destroyed that the Tower network was, rather hastily (and desperately), turned into a terraforming wonder. But since the Towers were never designed for this purpose (at least not intitially), problems were abound to occur, eventually.
I don’t think you can retrofit terraforming functions to weapons hastily. The plan could have been to destroy the world and their enemies within completely then terraform it and return to a perfect paradise they could rule over. In fact, I pretty much assumed that much since the first time I played the games… It’s the first time I see it questioned too so I’m a bit surprised…